I moved a few years ago and had to tear down my tank, but I think I'm finally ready to start it back up again. I'm hoping to learn from some of my mistakes the first time (there were many).
Having been out of the hobby for a few years, I'm a little rusty, and this will be my second reef tank so I wasn't particularly "expert" to begin with - I'd love to hear any constructive criticism people have.
I'd like to build a colorful tank, I'm thinking LPS-dominated. I'd like to have some SPS but I'm a little worried I'm not experienced enough to do them well.
My tank is a 36-gallon Fluval M90. When I tore it down, I had added a filter basket for floss and carbon, I was running an AquaMaxx ConeS HOB skimmer (rated for 90g heavy bioload) and was running biopellets in a reactor inline with my return pump. Lighting was 2 kessil 160's turned down to like 50% and circulation was a gyre.
This setup worked pretty well - I was dosing 2-part manually weekly and my parameters were pretty stable, but the couple frags I had weren't thriving.
Here's what I'm planning to change this time:
* Skip the live rock and just use the artificial "CaribSea" rock. I'm more interested in avoiding unwanted hitchhikers than in ensuring biodiversity.
* Swap out the gyre pump for a pair of either MP10's or Neptune WAV's.
* Either add a dosing pump or a calcium reactor once the tank stabilizes.
Does that sound reasonable? Are there new practices or products I should be considering? Is there anything important to watch out for when starting a LPS/SPS tank?
Having been out of the hobby for a few years, I'm a little rusty, and this will be my second reef tank so I wasn't particularly "expert" to begin with - I'd love to hear any constructive criticism people have.
I'd like to build a colorful tank, I'm thinking LPS-dominated. I'd like to have some SPS but I'm a little worried I'm not experienced enough to do them well.
My tank is a 36-gallon Fluval M90. When I tore it down, I had added a filter basket for floss and carbon, I was running an AquaMaxx ConeS HOB skimmer (rated for 90g heavy bioload) and was running biopellets in a reactor inline with my return pump. Lighting was 2 kessil 160's turned down to like 50% and circulation was a gyre.
This setup worked pretty well - I was dosing 2-part manually weekly and my parameters were pretty stable, but the couple frags I had weren't thriving.
Here's what I'm planning to change this time:
* Skip the live rock and just use the artificial "CaribSea" rock. I'm more interested in avoiding unwanted hitchhikers than in ensuring biodiversity.
* Swap out the gyre pump for a pair of either MP10's or Neptune WAV's.
* Either add a dosing pump or a calcium reactor once the tank stabilizes.
Does that sound reasonable? Are there new practices or products I should be considering? Is there anything important to watch out for when starting a LPS/SPS tank?
